Help Build the Farmers a House

Co-organized

Christine Bourque and Sue Bourque are organizing this fundraiser.

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Hi, my name is Christine, my husband Adam and our two daughters, Sadie and Delia are the farmers of Blue Heron Farm in Grand Isle, Vermont.

We the farmers need housing.

We have a certified organic small, diversified, conserved 30 acre farm in the islands of Lake Champlain. We raise organic veggies, plants, chickens for eggs and meat, and sheep for wool and meat. We also have a couple of piglets, a few Jersey cows for raw milk, 4 cats and our rescue dog Daisy.

We have a social mission for our farm of making sure all can be fed and will be fed. Period. No one is turned away. We have a sliding scale, supported, senior and pay-what-you-can CSA so no matter your income you can have fresh veggies for 18 weeks through the season. We accept EBT on farm and at farmers' market. We work in partnership with the Champlain Islands Food Shelf, local gleaning projects, and Food for Thought a summer lunch program for Island children and their families. We supply food for Senior Centers and daycares in three counties. We help support youth athletics and food programs in our county. We have created a safe place for community members to volunteer and be with nature. Also, a safe place for folks to learn how to be farmers or how to grow food. A place that shares food. We co-created the Champlain Islands Farmers' Market back in 2005 so farmers in the county could have a venue to sell their wares at two prosperous locations on the islands.

We sell our food and wool at our farmstand, Champlain Islands Farmers Market, UVM Medical Center Farmers' Market and sell at the local coop City Market and Arbor Farm Market and wool festivals in Vermont and Massachusetts. We believe in community and support our community as active volunteers and providers of affordable organic food. We believe in making farm products accessible to all folks.

We have been living on this land since 2004 in a 1981 mobile home that came with the land when we bought and conserved it in 2012. Our daughters are now 15 and 12. Our roof is leaking, the windows are broken, the wind blows through our house, it is too small. We do a lot in and around our house. We have cooked many a farm dinner out of this tiny humble kitchen and run a farm, raise children, and live in our home.

The farmers need a new house.

We have had many starts and stops of trying to build a house over the last 10 years - from well-meaning community members. Right before Covid, we were almost there - but did not have a builder and we were told by a government agency that our land was not worth anything. I started to work with a business planner and VT Land Trust (the folks that conserved our land to preserve it forever for agricultural use) and Efficiency Vermont. We did not get any leads on builders or programs that farmers could apply for help/loan to build a house.

Then Covid hit and plans went on the back shelf while we were busy growing and feeding our community through the pandemic. We doubled are production to help feed our community in three counties. In 2022, a builder finally would talk with us thanks to his generosity and his work with farm labor housing with Efficiency Vermont. We designed a home - figured it out to be a ZEM home build, 2-box modular that would last our family and future farm families at least 100 years. Prices skyrocketed in 2020, 2021, and 2022, and now in 2023, we can not wait any longer. We have partnered with Vermont Land Trust, Efficiency Vermont, Vermont Housing Conservation Board, Vermont Housing Finance Agency, Vermont Economic Development Corporation/Vermont Agricultural Credit Corporation (VEDA/VACC) and we have applied for a CRRP grant with Vermont ACCD to help make this new farmhouse a reality.

What we have found with this journey over the last 10 years and most acutely the last 4 years is that there are no state or federal programs to help build a farmer a house on conserved land. There are programs for farm labor housing on the state and federal level which is desperately needed, but there is no program for Farmers: Christine, Adam, Sadie and Delia. None. Especially for farmers who have conserved or farming conserved land. Rural Development loans don't apply because we make money off our 30 acres (farming) and it is also not 2 acres. All home-building programs, loans and credits - we have found out the hard way- are made for people who are not farming and making a business from their land. We have been down all the roads - all dead ends. Mobile Home replacement programs are for owners who have less than 15 acres. Also, we can not get a conventional mortgage from a local bank or credit union because of the conservation easement on our land - so we need to go to an ag lender. USDA is out because they only give loans in your first 10 years of receipt of a farming loan - We are just a few months over 10 years. So VEDA/VACC is the only lender we can borrow from. There is no shopping around - no comparing rates - their rate is around 8 percent right now and constantly in flux due to the nature of the economy right now. These funds would help lower the amount we are going to borrow to build this house.

Here we are. With the resources we have brought together and our loan - we need about $60,000 to get us across the finish line for our new home. This home will have heat pumps, solar panels that will provide the energy for our small home AND farm, a PANTRY, a BASEMENT to store food crops so we can provide food to our community in the winter months, bedrooms for our daughters, a mud room, a kitchen that we can fit a kitchen table in and eat as a family of four and big enough to have friends come to visit or farm meetings.

Any money raised will go directly to our house building. We have come close to our goal - we are rounding third about to slide into our home - but we have been delivered a few more curve balls this 2023 growing season that put us in more of a financial hardship. First, prices have not gone down in the building industry and many prices have gone up! Who can afford to build a home today? Our modest, one-floor, 1400 sq ft home costs over $500k to build - with the excavating, blasting, basement, house - wait what? Yes, that's true. Prices are soaring and the average small farmer can not afford it or anyone else.

Second, this has been the most challenging growing season in Vermont. We farm on clay-based soils that we have improved over the last nearly 20 years. The excessive rain, over 30 inches since the beginning of July has made us lose crops, and have plant diseases that we have not seen before. It has prevented us from replanting crops for the last 6 weeks. We are still harvesting but the majority of it is going to our CSA members who depend on our food. We have little to no extra vegetables to wholesale or at the farmers' market. We are lucky that we did not lose our farm like many other farmers have in Vermont to the flood.

So here we are. We have been so busy growing community and food and now we turn to our community near and far for help. Help us build our farmhouse this year. We promise you won't be sorry. It will be an investment in our local food economy and our community. We hope to raise the money over the next 2 months, the sooner the better - so we can take delivery of the home in December and start prepping the site in the early Fall 2023.

Farmers need infrastructure - and a farmhouse is that.

Thank you.

In humble gratitude,

Christine, Adam, Sadie and Delia

Blue Heron Farm

Grand Isle, VT 05458

www.blueheronfarmvt.com